RUSH: She was just gonna see what’s on the prompter for the first time, and she’s reading these names, and the look on her face after she reads the copy illustrates she was probably reading it for the first time. Imagine a TV screen filled with a big blue graphic with the chyron names bigger than usual. You have a big screen, and they’re up there — I mean, they’re huge. The chief pilot was “Sum Ting Wong,” three names. The copilot, “Wi Tu Lo.”

The next one I can’t say. It’s got an F-bomb. But they put it up there. It was on the screen “Ho Lee…” (laughing) F-u-k. On the screen! And the woman’s reading it. The anchor’s reading it. The final name was “Bang Ding Ow.” I’m telling you, the reading of this with all solemnity and so forth in addition to seeing it, makes this what it is. So somebody pulled a great, great prank here. Ah, it reminded me of some of my greats, some of the things that I have done in my earlier broadcast career.

I’m a little jealous that somebody was able to pull this off. This was aired just after noon local time. The station read a statement later in the broadcast, “Earlier in the newscast we gave some names of the pilots involved in the Asiana Airlines crash. These names were not accurate despite an NTSB official in Washington confirming them late this morning. We apologize for the error.”